Sherry B. Ortner's essay "Is female to male what nature is to culture" is a very enriching text to dissect and discuss. It creates conversation around the topic of the perceived role of womxn in society as being closer to nature. In other words, Ortner examines cultural perceptions of womxn and nature. Some points that I found interesting were the mention of womxn embodying intermediate position between nature and culture, and the emerging ambiguity that comes from this intermidiecy. Ortner critiques Engels' viewpoints about the creation of patriarchy or, rather, the notion of predominant matriarchal societies. I wrote my key terms on this paper, specifically, the role of the term woman in the text. I discussed how Ortner facilitates the meaning of woman as a mode of interpretation, a theoretical lens in of itself rather than through a biological lens.
The defining question for this week's reading in my Feminist Theory course is where did patriarchy and, in turn, misogyny, come from? How were they concieved or developed into what we now them by today?
During class we discussed Fredrich Engels'"The Family" essay on the development of the family unit. Deriving his arguments from the basis of Marxism, Engels posutalates that as labor and production became privitized and capitalistic, the family unit needed to reflect and uphold the forming superstructure of society. So, through this change, patriarchy was formed and the female population was subjugated to servitude.
While I do believe that Engels argument from a theoretical standpoint is promising and has merit in the further subjugation of womxn, the evidence to support his argument is flawed.
Writing, editing, and evaluating fiction. Through three short fiction pieces or novella, you will learn the practice of writing fiction while also exploring the process of peer review and feedback.
The topic for this specific course is “Feminist Theory.” In this course we will study the history of feminist thought, as well as contemporary debates about gender, power, subjectivity, and intersectionality. Our survey of the history of feminist thought will pose fundamental questions: What is a woman? What is feminism? What should the goals of a feminist movement be? How do race, class, sexual, and cultural differences impact the way we theorize and practice feminism? Our readings will also move beyond American borders, particularly as we near the end of the 20th-century and enter the 21st, including the influential body of French feminism, as well as postcolonial and global feminist perspectives.